Welcome to our Rustic Farmhouse Christmas Home Tour! If you are visiting for the first time, my name is Elizabeth and I live with my husband and two older teen boys in the suburbs of a small town in southern Ontario, Canada, about an hour west of Toronto. If you are a regular reader, you may notice some changes in our home from last Christmas.
Our family loves to visit extended family on farms and spend time in Ontario's beautiful cottage country. We have been working on affordable diy projects to update our 17 year old builder home and to reflect our interests in farm and lake living, here in the 'burbs. Today I am sharing our rustic casual home where nothing is fancy but friends and our large extended family are always welcome. Prepare for picture overload ;)
I am finishing up our outdoor decor this week, so we will begin the tour at our front door. I decorate with mostly neutrals in our home year round but added red and plaids for the Christmas season.
Our small entry has a coat closet but also serves as our mudroom for the comings and goings of a busy family. My guys wear lots of work boots, barn jackets and work wear, so I added this shelf with extra hooks to supplement the hooks in our basement stairwell.
I challenged myself to use the decorations and supplies we already have to deocrate our home for Christmas this year. I had fun finding new ways to display everything and crafted some new items too. I added grapevine wreaths with deer burlap ribbon to both the hall closet and half bath doors.
The black cabinet holds baskets full of hats, mittens and gloves, and my knitted scarves.
The half bath is tiny but I managed to fit this narrow rustic cabinet in for extra supplies. It is also a great spot for my collected Santas.
The quilted Santa advent calendar is several years old and I'm still working on the ornaments that hang on his tree.
I like incorporating my regular decor items into the Christmas vignettes. This swivel lid wood box that our 16 year old made gives some of the Santas a lift and adds the wood tones that I love using to this room.
I added red and black check pillows that I made (some with moose fronts) to the year round white with grey and wood front living room.
We love the new retro industrial pendant light that we installed last week. The fresh greenery in an ironstone pitcher is a great way to add the scent of real pine when you use an artificial tree.
I decided to hang the vintage skis above my new chalkboards. The writing on the chalkboard is not perfect but the message is sincere.
I switched up the usual tray on the coffee table for a footed trifle bowl filled with faux snow, large mercury glass balls, small balls in matte white, shiny white and silver, stars and some greenery.
Hopefully this display will survive our chocolate Lab Remington's tail and my sister's rambunctious Labradoodle puppy.
The living room tree is my 'fun' tree. I used buffalo plaid ribbon, red and brown moose, pinecones, glittery deer, words and stars, sweater trees and balls, wooden candy canes, glittery vintage bulbs, and plaid wrapped balls, plus lots of shiny balls.
The farmhouse table I remade has lots of mercury glass pieces, pinecones and a sign I painted.
Fresh greenery makes every arrangement look better. I got ours free from a local tree farm by picking up their trimmings.
I always keep my latest needlework project in our living room, this time a knit scarf in chunky grey. We use the big white pillows in the galvanized washtub as floor pillows when the young people are hanging out. I bought the galvanized tub for our tree but the stand didn't fit.
I added a strand of bells to the buffet and hutch and a trio of clear glass vases filled with silver balls to the dining room table. The vases were clearance at a local grocery store for 74 cents each!
I painted the cardboard banner letters with chalkboard paint and wrote Merry Christmas on them.
Moving on to the family room at the back of our home. I am so happy to finally have this fireplace shiplap and board and batten wall with mantel finished. I will share the before and after in an upcoming post. I found the glass vases at the thrift store to hold bells and the free birch limbs. We still have some trim work to finish in here but it is a huge improvement from last year.
The new faux beam mantel is decorated with vintage wooden spools, candles wrapped in birch, and the deer nestled in the icy garland. The vintage milk pail is filled with more greenery, birch and red wood berries. I sewed the white twill denim stockings this year and used upholstery webbing for the cuff.
I will add better photos of our family room tree to the individual room tours coming up.
I added tartan plaid and buffalo check pillows to our leather seating. The gallery wall has a few Christmas accents. The big black wooden bowl holds vintage silver and red ball ornaments and pinecones.
Looking toward the back yard and the cathedral ceiling end of our home, we have a new computer table. I cut down an old farmhouse table and restained the butcher block top. I also added castors to the metal tool drawers that I repurposed for office storage under the table. Our family tree with all the collected and special family ornaments sits between the family room windows and the kitchen patio doors.
Some vignettes in our family room. The only newly purchased item in this collage is the plaid fabric on the ottoman.
Moving around the tree you come into the eat-in area of our kitchen, which shares the cathedral ceiling and skylights with the back of our family room.
If you don't know, I work full time in education, but I also paint furniture for our home and resale. I wanted to finish building a rustic console shelf for behind the table but we didn't get it finished in time. Instead I am using a vintage dresser that I painted for our hot chocolate bar. The dresser might be going to a new home this week.
I added strings of red bells and beads to the chalkboard. I sewed the tartan table runner. The tray is easily removed for family dinners.
Greenery with pinecones was added to the crock that holds my rolling pin collection.
I kept the open shelves beside our breakfast bar simple for Christmas with just the NOEL, some red berry garland and fresh pine added to my aqua mason jars and ironstone pudding bowls.
The little tree in the galvanized bucket is decorated with vintage moulds, small ironstone pitchers, vintage biscuit cutters, bulbs from old Christmas light strands and burlap garland and bow.
Our little hot chocolate bar with candy canes and marshmallows. The gingerbread people cookies are from a local bakery and were delicious!
I added a small wreath to the board and batten wall and a little cow angel ornament to the bread box.
The work area of our kitchen has only a few Christmas additions.
Well, if you made it this far, thank you! I will end the tour here in the kitchen as we are currently in the patching and priming stages of our master bedroom, guest bedroom and ensuite bath. I will be sure to share these spaces when they are finished. If you have any questions I would be more than happy to answer them. Thanks for visiting at this busy time of year! I wish you and your family the happiest of holidays and a very Merry Christmas.
Thanks Jennifer Rizzo and Joss and Main for hosting all the beautiful Holiday Housewalk Tours. I look forward to seeing the tours in the link party.
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